Happy New Year, 2017 Edition

Yes, I have been sadly remiss in my blogging duties. Truth is, I’ve been remiss in a lot of duties! I jot down endless things that I want to do, that I mean to do, and somehow they never come to fruition. In my defense, I’ve spent the past couple months starting a new position at work, moving across the country, dealing with a fire in our moving truck, finding an apartment, holidays, traveling, etc. etc. It’s been a bit absurd, like I am somehow living a completely different life than I was just 3 months ago.

So I won’t break out the hair shirt, but I will say that, as things have begun to settle down a bit, I am resolved to get back into my better creative habits. My writing goal for this year is to write at least 1,000 words every week. It’s not much (not even an entire book in a year), but it’s a good place to start. And those are new words I am aiming for, so any editing and querying and such are on top of that. It’s not a bad goal. I also hope to complete one short story a month. I struggle on and off with shorts, but the few I have managed to write I like, and I think it will add to my repertoire of writerly skills.

I am damned sure going to finish this manuscript that has been languishing in the 50k doldrums for a long time.

I am also going to read a lot. I read 60 books last year (more detail on that in a future post), and I want to hit 65 this year. Hopefully from a wide variety of authors and genres, but I don’t want to hold myself to anything specific there. More non-fiction for sure, as I find it gets my creative gears spinning.

So—here’s to 2017, another year which will undoubtedly be messy and full of starts and stops and disappointments and hopes and progress and backsliding and all the joy and anguish we call life (and writing). Cheers!